The Scouting Trip (Sparky's Letter Home)

Our scoutmaster told us all to write our parents in case you saw the flood on TV and worried. We are OK. Only one of our tents and two sleeping bags got washed away. Luckily none of us drowned because we were all up on the mountain looking for Timmy when it happened. Oh yes, please call Timmy's mother and tell her he is OK. He can't write because of the cast. I got to ride in one of the Search and Rescue jeeps. It was neat. We never would have found him in the dark if it hadn't been for the lightning.

Scoutmaster Webb got mad at Timmy for going on a hike alone without telling anyone. Timmy said he did tell him, but it was during the fire so he probably didn't hear him. Did you know that if you put gas on a fire, the gas can will blow up? The wet wood still didn't burn, but one of our tents did. Also some of our clothes. John is going to look weird until his hair grows back.

We got to see some grizzly bears too. The cubs are really cute. They were really friendly too, as long as we were feeding them candy bars, but the mama grizzly must have gotten mad when Scoutmaster Webb fed one of the baby bears a brillo pad. It was amazing how fast she ran out of the trees. It was fine though cause Scoutmaster Webb is a really fast runner, and she stopped chasing him when she found the left-over sandwiches that we had tossed in the bushes. Oh yea, I need new scout pants also, cause mama grizzly tore the back pocket off the new ones I was wearing.

We will be home on Saturday if Scoutmaster Webb gets the car fixed. It wasn't his fault about the wreck. The brakes worked OK when we left. Scoutmaster Webb said that with a car that old you have to expect something to break down; that's probably why he can't get insurance on it. We think it's a neat car. He doesn't care if we get it dirty, and if it's hot, sometimes he lets us ride on the tailgate. It gets pretty hot with ten people in a car. He let us take turns riding in the trailer until the highway patrolman stopped and talked to us.

Scoutmaster Webb is a neat guy. Don't worry, he is a good driver. In fact, he is teaching Timmy how to drive. But he only lets him drive on mountain roads where there isn't any traffic. All we ever see up there are logging trucks.

This morning, all of the guys were diving off rocks and swimming out in the lake. Scoutmaster Webb wouldn't let me because I can't swim and Timmy was afraid he would sink because of his cast, so he let us take the canoe across the lake. It was great. You can still see some of the trees under the water from the flood. Scoutmaster Webb isn't crabby like some scoutmasters. He didn't even get mad about the life jackets.

He has to spend lots of time working on the car so we are trying not to cause him any trouble. Guess what? We have all passed our first aid merit badges. When Dave dove into the lake and cut his arm, we got to see how a tourniquet works. Also Wade and I threw up. Scoutmaster Webb said it probably was just food poisoning from the leftover chicken; he said they got sick that way with the food they ate in prison. I'm so glad he got out and became our Scoutmaster. He said he sure figured out how to get things done better while he was doing his time. I have to go now. We are going into town to mail our letters and buy bullets. Don't worry about anything. We are fine.

Love,
Sparky

 

 

 

 



Southern Sierra High Adventure Team